Dopamine itself can’t be administered orally due to its poor absorption- it has to be administered intravenously, which isn’t something normally left to a patient.
Many drugs have this limitation. One of the most daunting tasks in drug development is getting a pharmaceutical through the gastrointestinal system and the woodchipper that is the human liver without losing its effectiveness. IV administration bypasses this to an extent.
IV dopamine is also only used to treat specific medical conditions, and dosing is very important to avoid negative secondary effects throughout the body. So medical supervision is critical.
Anytime you supplant a naturally made compound in the body it causes the body to slow or even stop production of said compound , leading to a crash in the short term or reliance upon the artificial compound as the genes down regulate in the long. Similar to people who take insulin or meth. It’s a horrible idea to rely on medication if the body doesn’t lack the ability to form it naturally, it causes more problems than it helps.
We do!
For Parkinson’s (lack of dopamine in certain parts of the brain) we give oral L-dopa (a precursor of dopamine)
For depression, bupropion (Wellbutrin) is a very commonly used dopiminergic agent that works via reducing pre-synaptic dopamine reuptake (like many other anti depressants do for serotonin).
Substances of abuse, namely cocaine and stimulants, also work to increase the amount of dopamine in various synapses.
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